Sen. John Kerry Staffer to Join Facebook's Policy Team in D.C.

Jodi Seth, communications director for Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), will be joining Facebook to manage the social media giant's policy and communications efforts in Washington, D.C.

Facebook has become an integral part of the campaign strategy of candidates at all levels of government in the past few election cycles, even as the company has come under fire regarding data privacy concerns.

Data:

Facebook's political action committee (FBPAC) has contributed $267,000 to federal candidates in the 2012 election cycle.

The PAC favors Republicans, with Democratic candidates receiving $123,500 and their Republican counterparts taking in $142,500.

Methodology: MapLight analysis of contributions from FACEBOOK INC PAC (FBPAC) to 2012 candidates based on latest data available from the FEC as of Dec. 9, 2012.If you use MapLight data, please cite accordingly.

About MapLight: MapLight is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that reveals money's influence on politics. If our work has been helpful to you, please consider supporting us.

About our data

Read the details about our data sources and methodology. Data refers to direct contributions to the campaign committees of elected legislators. For example, contribution totals exclude contributions to party committees such as the RNC or the DNC and exclude contributions made to individuals that did not win their election.

For U.S. Congress, contributions data provided by the Center for Responsive Politics (OpenSecrets.org) and legislative data provided by GovTrack.us.

California contributions data provided by the National Institute on Money in State Politics (FollowTheMoney.org).